The second week of the COMICON.COM's CBLDF Holiday Benefit
Auction kicks off today with another blockbuster round of A-list
items donated to raise money for the Fund's fight for free
speech!

Last week's auction raised nearly $4,000! High points included
stellar pieces, such as the original art to Frank Cho's amazing
cover to More Fund Comics, a benefit produced by SkyDog Comics and
the Baltimore Comicon. That piece closed for an extraordinary
$2,000! Other highlights included original Promethea art by JH
Williams,which closed for over $500; a Zippy page by Bill Griffith,
which closed for over $400; and a Rick Veitch Greyshirt cover, which
closed for over $250.

More Fund Comics, the benefit book published by Sky Dog Comics with
the Baltimore Comicon has raised over $17,000 for the CBLDF so far
this year. John Gallagher, editor and publisher of the book says,
"I just put a check in the mail for $10,000 representing the
money raised after costs on the initial orders of More Fund.
It's very gratifying to have worked with so many great artists to
make this dream project become a difference-making reality for the
CBLDF."

In addition to the $10,000 raised by the book, More Fund artists also
contributed much of their original art, including cover artists
George Perez and Frank Cho. Most of that art was sold on auction at
Baltimore Comicon last September where it raised $5,000 for the
CBLDF. Last week on eBay the Frank Cho variant cover was sold on
auction as part of the Comicon.com Holiday Benefit Auction for the
Fund and it raised over $2,000. Between the book and auction
proceeds More Fund has raised over $17,000 to date!

"This was a fantastic fundraiser," enthuses Fund Director
Charles Brownstein. "Everyone involved went above and beyond the
call to produce one of the best anthologies anywhere and to do it for
a cause that urgently needs everyone's support. More Fund will
help us build our war chest so we can fight whatever battles the
coming election year dishes out."

I just want to congratulate Vu on the
5th Anniversary of this fan site. I have
been enormously flattered by all his
work and dedication and I hope that I
continue to deserve such attention.

On a different subject, I just want to
clarify a misleading item in the piece
about the CBLDF auction. The
JLA/AVENGERS cover art that they are
referring to is the cover of the WIZARD
WORLD DALLAS program book that has been
shown on this site. It's the one with
Cap, the Wasp and Wonder Woman looking
over Cap's shoulder as the Atom and
Yellowjacket duke it out. I can only
imagine the consternation this may cause
at the actual time of the CBLDF auction,
but I figure Vu may be the best person
to forward this clarification to the
CBLDF folks as well as to any other
sites that this item may have appeared
in. He's really good at that sort of
thing. That's probably one of many
reasons why Vu's been the master of this
domain for 5 years.

If any
comic artist working today deserves the title of "living legend," that
artist is George Pérez. How man citizens in the kingdom of comic
creators have worked steadily over the last 30 years, growing more
popular with each passing?

THE 1970s After an understated debut on Marvel Comics's Astonishing Tales #25
way back in 1973 - the first appearance of Deathlok, by the way - Pérez
found he could write his own ticket, quickly jumping on titles like Avengers, Fantastic Four, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu and Justice League of America.

THE 1980S The defining decade of Pérez's career, not only did the '80s see the debut of the hugely popular New Teen Titans
- co-created with writer Marv Wolfman - and enduring villains like
Deathstroke the Terminator and Brother Blood, it saw Pérez take on half
the task of rewriting the reality of the DC Comics universe, Crisis on Infinite Earths simplified the chaos of DC continuity, killing off Supergirl and the Flash and making way for their modern successors. From Crisis,
Pérez went straight to reworking the story of Wonder Woman, lending his
writing skill as well as his art to the new, more mythology-centered
character if there was one dark spot on the Pérez decade, it was the
lost dream of the JLA/Avengers crossover…

THE 1990s A vision of the last days of the green goliath in Hulk: Future Imperfect
with writer Peter David could stand alone as an artist's project of the
decade. But Pérez, with sleek, bright art and an overwhelming need to
draw every Avengers that has ever been, went on to relaunch the Avengers with Kurt (Marvels)
Busiek as the '90s neared their close. More than 20 years after his
start, Pérez transitioned easily into the new millennium and found a
whole new generation of comic fans waiting for him.

TODAY
As he near the half-century mark, George Pérez shows no signs of going
gracefully into that good night (or whatever old comic artists go).
With new, fantasty-themed art for such CrossGen books as CrossGen Chronicles and Solus, he's breaking new territory - even for him. And with the blockbuster success of JLA/Avengers, he's finally realized a dream nearly 20 years in the making.

ESSENTIAL PEREZ READING

(excerpt)

In nearly 30 years in comics - THIRTY!-
George Pérez has probably drawn every character you've ever heard of and
a lot you haven't.
And written a few too. While it's impossible to show 'em all, here are
some of the highlights you might want to pick up from dealers at the
show. Thanks to GeorgePerez.com for the checklist; you can find a complete list of George's work there.